


Don't Look Behind the Curtain

by KillerKueen



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-10 22:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillerKueen/pseuds/KillerKueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People tend to think they're mad when they start to hear voices they can't explain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a belated prompt fill for the lovely echoesinazalea on tumblr.

It started as a whisper. Nothing more than a breath of air stirring over her ear.

_Please._

Belle was setting up a tray of tea things. She paused, her hand hovering over the cups and saucers she was about to place down (one cup already had a chip, she didn’t need to go about damaging it any more).

She was reasonably sure that it was Rumplestiltskin aiming to startle her into dropping the tray, or something. Even if it he hadn’t played such a prank on her in quite some time, she wouldn’t put it past him, but when she turned he wasn’t there.

The tray remained upright and in order. The kitchen remained empty, save her.

\---

_Help me._

Belle paused, the book in her hand hanging in the air, close to the shelf she was about to set it on. There was that voice again, so soft she could hardly make out what it was saying.

At first, she thought it might have been coming from the book – there were a dozen others on the table behind her, and two more in her arms. She always let them stack up before she shelved them again (Rumple would often snap at her half-heartedly about how she was supposed to be cleaning the library, not letting it fall into greater chaos, which was usually met with a roll of her eyes).

 _Please_.

This time it was easier for her to hear. She felt goose bumps rise on the exposed skin of her arms and neck.

Belle carefully stepped off the ladder. “Hello?” she called, feeling a tad-bit foolish. To be fair, she was in the Dark Castle. Surely voices that came from tea sets and bookshelves weren’t the strangest things that these walls had seen.

Belle called out again, but was met with no answer.

\---

 _Help_.

Belle was on a ladder again when she heard it. She was cleaning the windows in the north tower, her arm reaching with a rag to wipe away years of grime. Her reflection stared back at her with wide eyes. She could see her mouth had popped open in surprise.

“Tell where you are and I’ll help you,” Belle turned as much as she dared on the ladder, trying to see about the room and keep her balance. She didn’t have much luck with ladders, after all, and Rumple wasn’t around to catch her were she to fall.

Her brow furrowed. She felt like she was being watched. She had been followed by this voice for days, now. If this was a prank, Rumple was certainly being elaborate. His pranks tended to lean more towards the side of petty mischief and were, in the end, quite harmless. This voice didn’t feel like either.

Shaking her head, feeling foolish (as she always felt when she tried to engage her mystery voice in conversation), Belle swiveled back to the window, and to the bleak, blurry day that was behind it.

But then she jumped back, startled, almost losing her carefully sought balance on the ladder – _there had been a face there_ – but no. Where she was sure had once been a pair of astonishingly bright, emerald eyes, was nothing.

She touched the glass hesitantly. Only her reflection stared back.

\---

_It’s dark here._

Belle’s head jerked in the direction of the voice. She set the tea tray down on the dining table with more force than was strictly reasonable, causing the dishes to rattle. The voice was louder than it had ever been, and this time it was coming from the corner. She was sure of it.

Rumplestiltskin looked up from his spinning, his hands still working the wheel and the straw. “Something the matter, my dear?”

“Can’t you hear it?” asked Belle without turning her head.

“Hear what?” he asked, frowning.

“That voice.” Belle studied the corner. There were a couple tapestries on the wall. A pedestal with a wand on it. A suit of armor. The mirror that Rumplestiltskin kept covered. _The mirror._

From the corner of her eye, she could see his hands still.

“A voice, dearie?” Was that worry she could hear? “Perhaps we should keep the windows open, keep you from smelling my potion’s fumes.”

_Please. Help me._

Belle jumped. The voice was louder. More desperate.

_I’m so cold._

“What’s behind the mirror?” Belle demanded, walking forward without taking her eyes away from the sheet.

(She had asked him, when she first came to his dusty castle why he insisted that the mirrors stay covered. He had wiggled his fingers in a menacing manner and skirted off after giving her some non-answer and a flat threat that she best keep them that way.)

_Please. Help me!_

The voice was stronger, louder. Was it a child? Was the Dark One keeping a child behind the mirror?

“Belle,” his hand on her shoulder stilled her. Without realizing it, she had reached the tall mirror, her arm just a breath away from stretching out and pulling. She was so close. She could practically feel the smooth cloth between her fingertips.

“I have to help her,” she said, trying to shrug away from Rumple. She reached for the cloth again.

“Her?”

“The child. Let go, I have to help!” His fingers were a steel trap.

“Belle,” he said again, grabbing her arms and turning her around as she struggled.

 _Help me,_ the voice begged. _Help me, Belle!_

Rumplestiltskin’s hand gripped her chin roughly, forcing her gaze on him. He peered at her with his wide, strange eyes, his expression blank and hard.

She raised her arm, aiming to strike, to get away, to help the child _why wouldn’t he let her help_ –

Rumple seized her hand before her blow could land. He pulled it to his face, and smelled the inside of her wrist.

Then she pulled back and slapped him hard across the face with her other hand, the one not caught in his grip.

“Enough of this,” he growled, seemingly unaffected by her outburst, even as her hand stung. “Belle, listen to me, you’ve been enchanted.”

“Let go!”

“You’re under a spell – “

“I need to help – “

“What you need is –“ Rumplestiltskin was interrupted by Belle’s knee crashing into his groin. His grip loosened more out of surprise rather than any actual pain, but it was enough for Belle. She tore herself away and towards the mirror.

She reached out a hand.

 _Please!_ yelled the voice, so loud and bursting. _Help me!_

She grasped the sheet.

“Belle, don’t!”

She pulled.

A blinding light. A sharp shove from her left. A whisper ( _nothing more than a breath of air stirring over her ear_ ). Then nothing at all.

\---

When she awoke, the sky was dark through the windows of the great hall. She was sore and stiff from where she had fallen unconscious, and more than a little cold from the hard floor. She could feel a bruise forming on her side. She touched it gingerly, half-expecting to find it caked with blood.

From where Rumple had pushed her away from the light.

She gasped. Belle scrambled to her feet, only to have to lean back down, dizzy, as the blood rushed from her head.

What the hell had happened?

“Rumple?” She called out. She frantically looked around the hall. She was still in the Dark Castle. The pedestals were undisturbed, and the spinning wheel sat where it always had.

Belle turned to the mirror. The frame was decorative; gilded edges and dark metal. The glass was clear and clean. The sheet that had kept it covered was in a heap on the ground before it. There was no sign of Rumplestiltskin.

_“You are under a spell.”_

That’s what he had said, wasn’t it? She didn’t feel like she was under a spell. Not anymore, in any case.

The desperate voice was gone, and with it, her own desperate need to reach it.

“Rumplestiltskin?” She called again.

Just what had been behind that mirror? Did it still have power over her?

She stared at the glass, tried her best to stare _through_ it, as if doing so would make it easier to find the answers she needed. She stepped closer. Reached out a hand.

Just before she could touch the cool surface, a face appeared over her shoulder. Mouth open in a sneer, and wide emerald eyes, their gaze cold.

She swirled around, terrified –

But there was nothing there.

She slowly turned back to the mirror and was unsurprised to see the face had gone, leaving only her and the empty room reflected back. Quickly, she reached for the sheet, a deep, dark red, and pulled it back over the mirror as best she could.

Her throat constricted at the emptiness of the hall. She hated being alone in the castle. She had never liked it when Rumplestiltskin left for his deals, but this was different. She felt a suffocating finality. The air always _just_ sparked, like his magic was close by even when he wasn’t, but now there was only emptiness.

How could she have been so stupid?

Belle clenched her fists. She turned to the mirror. Whatever had happened, whatever had been done, she was going to undo it. She was going to get him back.


	2. Chapter 2

She started in Rumple’s tower. If Belle was going to find information on disembodied voices that made dark sorcerers disappear she’d find it there, among Rumplestiltskin’s spell books and potions. 

The air grew colder as she ascended the winding staircase, the wall smooth and clammy as she ran her hand along the stone. She kept her eyes and ears open in case the voice came back, but the only sound was her own footsteps as it echoed against the ceiling.

What could have been strong enough to spirit Rumplestiltskin away like that, and keep him to boot? He was the Dark One, after all. There was no force stronger, good or evil.

Belle opened the heavy door, taking in the workspace. It was just as disorganized as it always was; books stacked in piles haphazardly, burners giving off unseemly odors, and quills and parchment shoved aside, some with questionable stains and some with Rumple’s neat scrawl.

Belle looked through the unorganized bookshelves and through the ones lying like casualties on the floor. She pulled up a stool to a table. She started to read.

\---

Hours passed. Belle rubbed a hand over her face. She had read about boggarts, banshees and poltergeists, had even read about gnomes, nymphs and sprites, but the details offered in the books weren’t close enough to the creature she faced.

Frustrated, she pushed back from the table and walked over to the window. Her reflection stared back at her, and she saw how pale she was, how tired she looked.

She hadn’t felt this helpless, this out of depth, for a long time. She hadn’t even felt like this when the ogres threatened her land (there had always been a last resort, after all. They said a name and offered gold, and help had arrived to save them, hadn’t it?). 

No, the last time she felt like this was when her mother died. She had been a shade past childhood but hadn’t quite come of age when her mother was thrown from her horse.

Wait.

Belle peered at her reflection, eyes narrowed. When her mother died, all the mirrors had been covered with white sheets. She had asked her maids why, and they whispered to her that it kept the evil spirits at bay, kept them from causing harm from possessing unsuspecting people who happened to meet their gaze through a reflection.

Evil spirits.

It all seemed too simple to believe that it was an evil spirit, a mere haunting, that was the cause of her distress. After all, Belle was reasonably sure that no one had died in the castle since she’d lived there (she had indeed even kept Rumple from ending a thief’s life, thank you very much) and if it were haunted previously, surely she would have known about it sooner.

She turned back to her books, her mind whirling. An object could be haunted just as easily as a castle. Rumpelstiltskin might have unintentionally dealt for one such thing. Belle could picture it, him snatching some family heirloom from a desperate soul, claiming it as his price because it was curious and held sentimental value to the owner, perhaps. 

She’d heard tales of people being spirited away. People vanishing without a trace.

Rumpelstiltskin would never allow a ghost in the Dark castle, but to carry one in unwittingly…

Yes, that was the only explanation. There was a spirit in the mirror.

Belle felt her heartbeat pick up. So she had a very strong idea of what she was dealing with. Great. Now she had to figure out how to stop it.

She could maybe smash all the mirrors. That was a viable option. She’d get rid of everything with a reflection.

Only, the windows had reflections, too. She had seen a face when she was cleaning it, after all. Any reflective surface could be a doorway for the spirit.

Belle looked around the room. Polished tables, gleaming glass beakers, shiny windows. Even the porcelain tea set Rumple fancied so much could be reflective. She couldn’t very well small it all to pieces.

She could tie a handkerchief over her eyes and be willfully blinded, but she’d knock her shins bloody trying to make her way through the castle, and what good would that do if she wanted Rumple back? In the end, that would only protect herself and if she was so interested in self-preservation, she’d have walked out the minute Rumple vanished.

Belle felt the sensation of eyes on her, the hairs on her neck and arms standing up, but she was absolutely alone in the tower. Was the spirit watching her? Gauging her next move as she stood shivering in the tower?

Deciding there was at least something she could do to remedy the cold, she walked over to the fireplace and began to build up the fire. Soon enough, Belle was staring into the flames, the heat licking at her skirts and warming her clammy skin.

Belle took hold of the iron poker, and started to prod at the wood, more for something to do than anything else. She half smiled at an argument she had had with Rumpelstiltskin on more than one occasion about whether or not fresh wood and iron pokers were needed at all. She had stood, hands on her hips, insisting it was a chore she rather liked doing, his magic and convenience be damned.

_Belle._

She froze. She’d known the spirit wouldn’t stay silent for long. 

_Belle, come play with me._

“Who are you?” she called out turning so she could survey the room, not really expecting it to answer her question. “What do you want?”

_I want you to play. Come play, Belle._

“What did you do with Rumplestiltskin?”

_Rumple is here, with me,_ the voice was suddenly very close to her ear. _He wants you to play, too, it purred._ Belle Jerked away as the voice laughed, sending a chill down her spine.

From the corner of her eye, Belle saw ash and smoke swirl together in the grate. A hand, outstretching, followed by an arm, a torso, a head. The figure reached for her, opening its mouth – 

_Come play with us, Dearie!_

Belle swung blindly with the poker still clenched in her hand. It sliced through the figure, ash and smoke blowing apart. It blew out the fire, leaving nothing but ash and a familiar, high-pitched giggle that echoed through the hall.

Belle kept her back straight. Her knees did not buckle. She did not sink to the floor. She gripped the poker, her white-knuckles indiscernable from the rest of her pale skin.

She would have known that slim stature anywhere, let alone his voice. The question was, was the spirit using Rumple’s form or had it indeed possessed him, as the stories suggested?

It was anger now that make her shake (unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome). How dare that thing use him, how _dare_ it take him in he first place. The panic she had felt when she first discovered she was alone couldn’t hold a candle to this blind rage.

Belle thought back to her mother’s wake. It was only the mirrors that had been covered, she was sure of it. Reflections may be the pathways, but it was the mirrors that held the power (Rumple had only ever made a point about them being covered after all, hadn’t he?).

She felt her hesitation from before evaporate into nothing. She’d smash them all then, every last mirror in the castle. If nothing else, she’d be able to herd the spirit to a place that she had the advantage – and if somehow that didn’t work, then she’d smash every last pane of glass and porcelain teacup to dust, too.

Belle rolled the iron poker in her hands.

It was time to be brave. There was work to be done.


End file.
